Irish designer Bernice Kelly launched Macha jewelry (named after her hometown in Northern Ireland) in 2007. Pretty without being too precious, the London-based line offers incredible rings and humble necklaces in simple materials like silver, gold plate, and gemstones. To craft her accessories (many of them unisex), Kelly antiques and textures the pieces for a worn-in look. It’s an aesthetic that sometimes renders pieces a little imperfect; a few designs are even fashioned by starting with an accidental shape or a carving mistake. But Kelly calls her vintage-inspired jewelry “classics of the future”.  And some of these handmade pieces are even a little whimsical: crab-claw cufflinks, molar-shaped pendants, sterling silver rings shaped like string knots. Kelly’s own photography reveals the intricacies of the pieces. One ring boasts a huge nugget of a gemstone – or does it? Upon closer look, the stone is actually a ridged chunk of metal, set like a diamond. Past collections have drawn on diverse, historical contexts, more industrious than elegant, from the American roadtrip to Victorian mining. And as a label, Macha is truly about the work, quality over an image or a pretense. The modern brand regularly posts its newest, modestly hewn pieces on its Facebook page. Lately, Kelly has been advertising her chunky-stoned rings for Valentine’s Day.
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Photography by Hendrik Kerstens via The New York Times

Today is a sad day in the world of fashion. Alexander McQueen, the notorious British designer, passed away at the age of forty, cutting short one of the most illustrious creative careers. He apparently committed suicide just days after his mother passed on. He was supposed to present his next women’s collection in Paris in a month.
     McQueen was a genius. He relentlessly pushed the boundaries of fashion, especially with his phantasmagoric runway presentations, shocking his audience not only by the sheer force of his imagination, but also by his willingness to engage controversial topics in the industry that is immune to seriousness. For the Fall/Winter 1995 collection, titled “Highland Rape” he reflected on the English rule of his native Scotland, sending out models in airy clothes that were shredded at the breast. For the Spring/Summer 2001 collection, McQueen tackled the behind-the-scenes tragedy of the picture-perfect model image, putting models in a reflective-glass house. It was narcissism bordering on insanity. As the finale, another glass box was presented with writer Michelle Olley, naked, her body fat, face hidden by a mask, hooked up to a life support machine and covered with moths. There has never been a more poignant commentary on image obsession in fashion, and there probably never will be.
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Maria Cornejo, a Chilean-born designer, has long been an underground fixture in the fashion world. Not exactly famous, not exactly unknown, she has consistently put out beautiful womenswear since her club kid days in London three decades ago. After growing tired of London Cornejo moved to Paris and then Tokyo, finally settling in New York City in 1996, where she opened an atelier in Nolita under the name Zero. She has become known for her unconventional, fluid garments that may look perplexing on the hangers but morph and fall gracefully once on the body.
     This season Cornejo decided to dip her toes into the overheating men’s fashion market by creating a capsule menswear collection, which she showed with her womenswear during the Spring 2010 New York fashion week. With admirable consistency she transferred her design signature into a concave-shaped rain jacket, a seamless one-piece shirt, an oversized sweater with dropped shoulder, and slim bias-cut pants, among other pieces. The resulting silhouette is perfectly laid-back – no easy task to achieve when everyone these days seems to be trying their hardest to look nonchalant. The fabrics echo the comfort of the slightly asymmetric cuts – soft cottons and spring weight wool are predominant. The muted and discreet colors – black, white, and navy – create a gentle quietness around the collection.
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Ann Demeulemeester

Queen Ann is the last romantic left in fashion. In the 21st Century, she is the one designer who can speak of poetry in her work unselfconsciously. Perhaps this collection was Demeulemeester sensing that our world is becoming increasingly prosaic. Backstage after the show, Demeulemeester said, “I started this collection by imagining a duke. Left in his castle, cut off from the world, what would he wear?” The answer — long black coats, high-waist riding pants, and leather rope belts. The tall young men Demeulemeester sent down the runway were every bit uninvolved, lost in their own thoughts, lost in their own clothes, lost in their own world. These days, Demeulemeester likes to puncture her usual black and white palette with a choice of color. For this show her color of choice was olive-gray, which translated well into the capes and asymmetric, voluminous jackets.
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Photography by Julius

Black is the most misunderstood color. In fashion, black has been co-opted by two groups of people: the Balmain-sporting fashionistas who think that chic is a value in itself, and the misguided (by Hot Topic) teenagers who worship Satan and Marilyn Manson in the safety of their suburban homes. But black is not the color of chic or nihilism. For Tatsuro Horikawa, the young Japanese designer behind the cult clothing label Julius, black is the color of depth. It is not there to promote aggression and destruction – the pop version of black – but to display his awareness of the world that is subject to aggressive and destructive forces. And, as unexpected as it might sound, it is also a color of hope. “Black is the color of complete and utter grief,” says Horikawa’s manifesto, “and redemption through atonement.” This view is a kind of existentialism – the idea that we alone are responsible for our fate and carry the full burden of responsibility for our actions, and thus must bear witness to the world’s evil. This view can be easily traced in Horikawa’s uncompromising designs – the oiled leather jackets, heavy jeans with multiple pockets, and drapey, shredded tops. Their purposeful ruin is the reflection of our imperfection. But these clothes are also indestructible, like the human spirit.   
     Horikawa started out as a graphic designer in the late ’90s, forming a Tokyo-based art collective that produced multimedia installations. He considers the clothes to be the project’s extension.
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One glance would make you think Los Angeles-based designer Austin Sherbanenko specializes in outfitting metal bands or partying with Andrew W.K. His clothing does indeed carry a strong goth-rock influence; but that flavor, mixed with good old-fashioned skilled design, makes for a mature collection that’s more haute than Hot Topic. Sherbanenko’s brainchild since 2007, Odyn Vovk officially launched with its Spring/Summer 2009 collection. Now with his Spring/Summer 2010 collection, Confined Translation, Sherbanenko is a designer with a solid aesthetic; he knows his audience because he is his audience. This season in particular tells the story “of past events: distant, near, and natural.” Symbolism in the collection includes “dirt-ridden streets, industrial landscapes, and sounds of music.” Odyn Vovk, Ukrianian for “One Wolf”, suggests strength, independence, and resourcefulness. Odyn Vovk’s site states that in “Celtic tradition, Wolf represents learning, loyalty, intuition, and the shadow … cunning, wisdom, searching, dreams, magic, transformation, death, rebirth, and protection.” Sherbanenko chooses black to dominate his collections because the solid color allows design intricacies to shine through. Structure is key, whether it’s the subtle drapery of loose, asymmetrical hoodies or the stronger contour and weight of a leather-sleeved jacket.  The familiar and looser shapes ground the pieces, while classic shapes with minor twists – a zip-up jacket with a collar that could cover half your face, or a dress-length zippered vest – add elements of character, creativity, and construction.
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Minimal Dress, perhaps the most aptly-named collection I’ve ever seen, is the creation of conceptual Dutch designer Digna Kosse. Her final project at the Design Academy Eindhoven, Minimal Dress is a commentary on the grouping of clothing collections into seasons that renders fashion obsolete after just a few months. It’s also a two-fold meditation on materialism, with a focus on the actual “material” aspect. A little artistic, a little satirical, the pieces are mere sketches of dresses, a few strands of yarn or string knotted together to draw lines across and down the body. Of course, the average shopper probably wouldn’t wear the pieces as the look book shots depict. For practicality’s sake, the “dresses” might be more apt for an accessory or even a wall decoration. While the dresses are barely there, the presentation seems to avoid sexual provocation. Lisa Klappe’s photos feature the Minimal Dress pieces of women of average build, not vamping it up, just letting the dresses hang on them. 
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Ever wanted to own something truly unique? Now you can. No Editions, a new label designed by Christian Niessen and Nicole Lachelle, takes inimitability to a new level. The idea behind their designs is deceptively simple: take high quality garments with basic shapes and put prints on them. No two prints are alike, so you get a one-of-a-kind finished garment with a numbered label. No duplicate will ever be produced, not even in a different size or shape.
     Niessen and Lachelle met in the early 90s while working for the iconic Austrian designer Helmut Lang in Vienna. Several years after Lang was bought by Prada, they decided to strike out on their own, doing technical research for various clothing companies. After that Niessen and Lachelle started producing video installations. The idea for No Editions came out of their desire to translate the transience of the moving image into something less ephemeral. They also did not want to play the fashion game – no catwalk shows, no seasonal collections, and no advertising. “I never bought into the idea of ‘a lifestyle,’” says Niessen. “I don’t care about projecting an image. I want the wearer to make the garment her own.”
     All prints are produced through extensive manipulation of videos. Niessen is fascinated with the amount of information on the Internet and its malleability. For the next round of prints he used websites where one could access public cameras for a short period of time and record raw video footage.
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Some time ago, Ann Chapelle, owner and CEO of  BV32, a company that runs Belgian fashion houses Ann Demeulemeester and Haider Ackermann, was pondering the state of the fashion industry. She hardly liked what she saw – a world dominated by marketing and designers diluting their brands by sticking their name on anything from house paint to helicopters. In this world, branding trumped quality, and young designers could hardly develop their own voice.
     To change the status quo Chapelle created a new project, called “…a moment in…” At its core is a platform for creating and distributing clothes and accessories – “… a moment in…” is neither a fashion house subjected to the whims of a star designer, nor is it another uninspired luxury goods manufacturer. Its goal is to introduce different lines of products in limited quantities, concentrating on design and quality. Each line, introduced at six-month intervals and then continuously run, will address different market segments. Each will be created by a young designer, and allow the expression his or her vision. “One of the reasons I wanted to create this project is that there are so many young talented designers who struggle to get on their feet,” Chapelle says. ”This project allows them to apply their skills.” At the same time, each designer will have the support of a team of nine professionals familiar with different aspects of the business, handpicked by Chapelle herself. The first line, women’s knitwear, was launched in March 2009. The heavy wool and cashmere knit pieces are cozy, understated, and luxurious.
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When Uncommon Matters debuted its line of couture porcelain accessories, designers Amelie Riech and Jana Patz cheekily complemented the showroom installation with a soundtrack of breaking and clattering porcelain to underscore the fragility of their award-winning designs. The “Handle with Care” collection, as it is called, adeptly merges the idea of traditional crafts and materials taking shape to become an entirely new, modern creation.
     A man’s stiff shirt collar, for instance, becomes the inspiration for a series of platinized neckpieces, creating striking — and reflective — accessories that could perhaps be seen as a variation on the “boyfriend shirt” look. An entirely porcelain necklace, on the other hand, is designed with chain links in mind, and delicately clinks and clanks when in motion. Chunky porcelain bracelets and sleek neck cuffs round out the product line, which has continually graced the pages of many a fashion editorial in 2009.
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